Thy softest pleadings seem too bold, Thy praying lute will seem to scold; Though thou kept the straightest road, Yet thou errest far and broad.

But thou shalt do as do the gods
In their cloudless periods;

For of this lore be thou sure,·

Though thou forget, the gods, secure,
Forget never their command,

But make the statute of this land.
As they lead, so follow all,
Ever have done, ever shall.
Warning to the blind and deaf,
'Tis written on the iron leaf,
Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup
Loveth downward, and not up;
He who loves, of gods or men,
Shall not by the same be loved again;
His sweetheart's idolatry

Falls, in turn, a new degree.
When a god is once beguiled

By beauty of a mortal child
And by her radiant youth delighted,
He is not fooled, but warily knoweth
His love shall never be requited.
And thus the wise Immortal doeth,-
'Tis his study and delight

To bless that creature day and night;

From all evils to defend her ;
In her lap to pour all splendor;
To ransack earth for riches rare,

And fetch her stars to deck her hair:
He mixes music with her thoughts,
And saddens her with heavenly doubts :
All grace, all good his great heart 'knows,
Profuse in love, the king bestows,
Saying, Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air!
This monument of my despair

Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair.
Not for a private good,

But I, from my beatitude,

Albeit scorned as none was scorned,
Adorn her as was none adorned.

I make this maiden an ensample

To Nature, through her kingdoms ample,
Whereby to model newer races,

Statelier forms and fairer faces;
Το
carry man to new degrees
Of power and of comeliness.
These presents be the hostages
Which I pawn for my release.
See to thyself, O Universe!
Thou art better, and not worse.'
And the god, having given all,
Is freed forever from his thrall.

THE VISIT

ASKEST, How long thou shalt stay?'
Devastator of the day!

Know, each substance and relation,
Thorough nature's operation,
Hath its unit, bound and metre ;

And every new compound
Is some product and repeater, -
Product of the earlier found.
But the unit of the visit,
The encounter of the wise,

Say, what other metre is it

Than the meeting of the eyes

Through the channels of that feature,

Riding on the ray of sight,

Fleeter far than whirlwinds go,

Or for service, or delight,

Hearts to hearts their meaning show,

Sum their long experience,

And import intelligence.

Single look has drained the breast;

Single moment years confessed.

The duration of a glance

Is the term of convenance,

And, though thy rede be church or state, Frugal multiples of that.

Speeding Saturn cannot halt;

Linger, thou shalt rue the fault:

If Love his moment overstay,
Hatred's swift repulsions play.

URIEL

IT fell in the ancient periods

Which the brooding soul surveys, Or ever the wild Time coined itself Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel,

Which in Paradise befell.

Once, among the Pleiads walking,

Seyd overheard the young gods talking; And the treason, too long pent, To his ears was evident. The young deities discussed Laws of form, and metre just, Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams, What subsisteth, and what seems. One, with low tones that decide, And doubt and reverend use defied, With a look that solved the sphere,

And stirred the devils everywhere,
Gave his sentiment divine

Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return ;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;

The stern old war-gods shook their heads,
The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds;
Seemed to the holy festival

The rash word boded ill to all;

The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
The bounds of good and ill were rent ;
Strong Hades could not keep his own,
But all slid to confusion.1

A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell
On the beauty of Uriel;

In heaven once eminent, the god
Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud;
Whether doomed to long gyration
In the sea of generation,

Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.2
Straightway, a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind,
And their lips the secret kept,